All Independent Power Producers (IPPs) who do not have the ability to switch from light crude to gas or from gas to light crude will soon have no business doing in Ghana, Seth Terkper, Minister of Finance, has revealed.

According to him, in these times when Ghana was experiencing serious challenges with power supply, there was the need for IPPs to be able to do their production without failure, therefore, their equipment should be able to utilise both gas and light crude.

Addressing the current power situation on Accra-based Joy FM, Mr Terkper, who doubles as acting Minister of Power, said government was taking steps to deal with the challenges and one of them was the introduction of a Dual Energy Processing Policy, which will mandate all IPPs to use both gas and light crude.

He said government was putting plans in place to deal with the systemic challenges the country was facing, including the low water levels of the Akosombo and Bui dams and the disruption in the West Africa Gas Pipeline supply.

“But in the course of doing this, you face new challenges [as seen] in the FPSO incident (which was shut down for maintenance, leading to the curtailment of gas flow from the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant to the Aboadze thermal enclave) and, then, just when gas supply was restored, you had the disruption,” he continued.

“So what do you do? This is where you move to dual energy processing policy and so if you are an IPP and you are coming, don’t come in with only gas but come in with dual fuel use so that you can switch. This is one of the ways we have [to deal with the problem].

"We just sent a letter to the World Bank showing our plan under the partial rate guarantee for Sankofa [Gas Project]. We know that the third FPSO is under construction to make sure that come that time there will be no failures, so your ability to switch from gas to light crude and from light crude to gas is going to be very critical.